Before I came to Dominica I can probably count the number of times I have been in the ocean on two hands. Being a Great Lakes girl I never really had a need or really liked going in salt water. That number and attitude has definitely changed in the last two days.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to take a Discover Scuba class. It was just me and my instructor Brad and he was awesome. He taught me all the basics, I took a quiz, and then he said lets get in the ocean. I was a little surprised at first because I thought that there would be practicing involved, but I was all for it. I learned how to put on and assemble all of my equipment and then we walked out to the end of the dock. I stood at the end of the dock for a bit and then he told me to just jump in with the regulator in my mouth. This took awhile because I couldn't stop laughing. It was such a weird sensation to be breathing through a regulator above land. I finally managed to compose myself and I jumped in and I was perfectly fine, but it was amazing how light I felt in the ocean with all that heavy equipment on my back. Once we were in, I had 3 tests that I had to pass before I could go explore the ocean floor. The first was taking out my regulator, finding it again, clearing it, and then using it to breathe again. I was worried about this one the most, but it ended up being easi
er than I had thought. The second was filling up my mask with water and clearing it by tilting my head back and blowing air out my nose. I practiced both of these at the surface and when I was ready we headed down to the bottom. We started out at about 20 feet and when we got to the bottom, I did the regulator test and the mask test for real and I did another test where I had to breathe through Brad's regulator. The hardest part of all of those tests was to take the regulator out of my mouth while sitting on the ocean bottom. Once I got over that fear, we were golden and heading on our way. I got all three tests on the first try and it was time to explore. I am so used to looking down at the fish that it was amazing to be actually swimming with them. It was awesome and I saw Burr fish, trumpet fish, sea cucumbers, and even a lion fish. Don't worry, we remembered where we saw the lion fish and Brad went back to spear it later (they are an invasive species that are horrible for reef fish). After doing scuba once, I totally want to get certified and do it again. 
That was just my morning, the rest of the day was spent working. We continued to work on getting everything set up for our school visits and a snorkeling trip with a group of college students from the University of New England (UNE). Since it was a hot day, there were also intermittent jumps in the ocean to cool off.
Today we did some running around in the morning to make sure that we had all the supplies to tag sea turtles. If we saw any larger turtles while we were out on the snorkeling trip, we were going to try to tag them. Unfortunately we didn't see any turtles, but the snorkeling was awesome. We took the girls from UNE to champagne to snorkel. It is an incredible place to
snorkel because it is located a couple miles from a volcano and warm gases are being released from the ocean floor. The result is that it feels like you are swimming through a glass of champagne. There are tiny bubbles everywhere, the water is really warm, and there are thousands of little reef fish. I loved it plus I also swam a little farther out into deeper water and we saw a large school of fish and there was a barracuda swimming through them eating all the little fish.
As if my day couldn't get any better. I went out on the boat with a group of night divers tonight. It was a full moon last night so the fish were pretty active. I stayed on the boat and watched and helped getting the divers into and out of the water. I also got to enjoy the beautiful stars and the bioluminescence of the little creatures in the water. It was like having stars above me and below me.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to take a Discover Scuba class. It was just me and my instructor Brad and he was awesome. He taught me all the basics, I took a quiz, and then he said lets get in the ocean. I was a little surprised at first because I thought that there would be practicing involved, but I was all for it. I learned how to put on and assemble all of my equipment and then we walked out to the end of the dock. I stood at the end of the dock for a bit and then he told me to just jump in with the regulator in my mouth. This took awhile because I couldn't stop laughing. It was such a weird sensation to be breathing through a regulator above land. I finally managed to compose myself and I jumped in and I was perfectly fine, but it was amazing how light I felt in the ocean with all that heavy equipment on my back. Once we were in, I had 3 tests that I had to pass before I could go explore the ocean floor. The first was taking out my regulator, finding it again, clearing it, and then using it to breathe again. I was worried about this one the most, but it ended up being easi
er than I had thought. The second was filling up my mask with water and clearing it by tilting my head back and blowing air out my nose. I practiced both of these at the surface and when I was ready we headed down to the bottom. We started out at about 20 feet and when we got to the bottom, I did the regulator test and the mask test for real and I did another test where I had to breathe through Brad's regulator. The hardest part of all of those tests was to take the regulator out of my mouth while sitting on the ocean bottom. Once I got over that fear, we were golden and heading on our way. I got all three tests on the first try and it was time to explore. I am so used to looking down at the fish that it was amazing to be actually swimming with them. It was awesome and I saw Burr fish, trumpet fish, sea cucumbers, and even a lion fish. Don't worry, we remembered where we saw the lion fish and Brad went back to spear it later (they are an invasive species that are horrible for reef fish). After doing scuba once, I totally want to get certified and do it again. 
That was just my morning, the rest of the day was spent working. We continued to work on getting everything set up for our school visits and a snorkeling trip with a group of college students from the University of New England (UNE). Since it was a hot day, there were also intermittent jumps in the ocean to cool off.
Today we did some running around in the morning to make sure that we had all the supplies to tag sea turtles. If we saw any larger turtles while we were out on the snorkeling trip, we were going to try to tag them. Unfortunately we didn't see any turtles, but the snorkeling was awesome. We took the girls from UNE to champagne to snorkel. It is an incredible place to
snorkel because it is located a couple miles from a volcano and warm gases are being released from the ocean floor. The result is that it feels like you are swimming through a glass of champagne. There are tiny bubbles everywhere, the water is really warm, and there are thousands of little reef fish. I loved it plus I also swam a little farther out into deeper water and we saw a large school of fish and there was a barracuda swimming through them eating all the little fish.As if my day couldn't get any better. I went out on the boat with a group of night divers tonight. It was a full moon last night so the fish were pretty active. I stayed on the boat and watched and helped getting the divers into and out of the water. I also got to enjoy the beautiful stars and the bioluminescence of the little creatures in the water. It was like having stars above me and below me.
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